Satya Nadella. ... He’s 46. He’s never run a company before. Yet he beat every other candidate to run one of the world’s largest companies. How?... I’ve come to the conclusion that he was picked for general qualities that every business person should try hard to excel at. ... Here are the eight ways that helped him get to the top:[be like Satya]

Emma Byrne, a Benedict-Cumberbatch-fangrrl if ever there was one, points out the downsides of having a diva on your team, saying it's doomed to fail. But she goes on to suggest how to "rebuild trust and communication in even the most diva-pecked teams":

There’s something seductive about the lonely, troubled diva-genius. ... But sometimes, the lure of the diva is such that an entire team finds itself playing John Watson to the diva’s Sherlock.... The Sherlock effect gets old really fast. We’ve all worked with them: the rock-star engineer, the troubled code poet, the diva-DBA. ... But the problem arises when their narcissistic narrative meets real life.[it's elementary]

Should CEOs and other executives blog? That's the question I asked David Amerland and NetApp VP, David Gingell. We videoed the discussion. Our conclusion may surprise you:

On the one hand, CEOs are now expected to be authentic, putting a human face on the corporation. Social media can help executives meet their customers, while speaking the same language.... But, on the other hand, it’s more important for CEOs to be concentrating on leading the business. CEOs need to be focused on leading their companies from the front, not writing blog posts in their offices. CEOs who blog are like kids playing with matches—they could shed some light but they may start a fire that gets out of control.[watch us argue]

Zoë Goodacre isn't just known for her superb flash-fiction. She's also an ILM-certified Executive Coach. Here's she is, with some practical suggestions for coaching a winning team:

Imagine a company where employees take personal responsibility: Where people get the job done in the best way possible.... While you want to keep the company on the strait and narrow, you don’t want rules to become a straitjacket. ... Encourage a culture of supporting employees, rather than telling them what to do. That’s where coaching comes in.[learn, learn, learn more]

Though office buildings aren’t shrinking, the average tenant spaces inside them are smaller. ... Part of the reason is more remote workers and others who spend less time at their desks.... Personal space has shrunk from an average of 250 square feet per worker 10 years ago to 175 feet or less today. ... It makes for a noisier working environment, but younger workers often prefer it that way. ... On the other hand, studies show that noise and distractions decrease productivity.[sit here]

The Chromebook platform is disruption du jour. ... The cloud-based laptops have risen to conquer 21% of U.S. B2B notebook sales. ... So will we all be sporting Chromebooks soon? Unlikely.... Chromebooks—along with desktop computers, laptops, tablets, and mobile devices—have valid use case justifications in an IT ecosystem. The current problem with the Chromebook platform is finding a suitable toehold outside of the occasional niche.[provoke thought]

Who needs sales reps? That's the provocative question asked by Mark Weber, the president of NetApp's U.S. public sector division. He argues that the human factor wins, and tells us how:

B2B customers have more than just access to products, they also have access to information. ... Customers can now do their own homework on a product.... With so much information easily available, is your sales team still relevant? Absolutely! Your sales team is more important than ever.[winning]

Meanwhile, in one of many alternate futures, Zoë Goodacre penned several amazing, thought-provoking works of flash-fiction, each exactly 100 words long. Here's this month's most popular, titled The Coming Collapse Of Crypto Currency:

It’s decades since physical goods have been measured in physical worth.

Economists agree: Floating exchange rates hinder progress. Plus funds that can be handled — “cash,” as it was once called — are too easily illegally duplicated and cause criminality.

So, since barter was outlawed, Gov¢oin is the only way to trade. That is, until ¢-Day. [...continued...]

What treasures will March bring? Stay tuned to the talented writers of NetAppVoice to find out!